Post to the Dutch East Indies
The postal service
What is the purpose of the Amsterdam-Batavia line? Primarily, it's a postal service. KLM has committed to transporting all mail up to a maximum of 500 kg by plane.
At the start of the fortnightly service, the supply was 180 kg of mail; as soon as a weekly service was started, this quantity gradually increased to 230 kg.
This postal service offers significant advantages. Anyone writing on Wednesday knows their letter will arrive in the Dutch East Indies around Saturday, a week from now, be answered by Thursday, depart from Batavia on Friday, and arrive back a week from Saturday or Sunday. They'll then have a response within three weeks.
Earlier, at that same time, his letter had just arrived in the Dutch East Indies.
This represents a huge advantage for the businessman, but it also represents a significant advantage for the individual. Anyone connected to family in the Dutch East Indies knows from experience that they often ask questions in letters, but often receive no response, or so late that they are less interested in the answer.
Correspondence with the Dutch East Indies used to be mostly a one-sided series of messages back and forth and rarely an exchange of ideas.
Airmail has changed this; it has reduced the distance between individuals, and it is therefore no wonder that the number of private letters sent by airmail is exceptionally high.
As we said at the beginning, the aspiration to bring the different parts of the world closer together is so common that the Amsterdam – Batavia express connection certainly had to meet what is often called, with a much-abused expression, a “long-felt need.”
Mail transport is, of course, primarily important for the Netherlands and the Dutch East Indies, but it has gradually become important for other countries as well. Germany, France, Italy, Greece, Egypt, the Straits [Malaysia], and Siam [Thailand] already send their mail by KLM aircraft to all kinds of intermediate destinations. Egypt has mail for Europe, Italy has letters for Siam, the Straits have a substantial correspondence with England. Mailbags are loaded and unloaded everywhere, and the resulting bill is already extremely substantial.
There is even American mail for East Asia, because the route across the Atlantic Ocean and then onwards by KLM is faster than the route across the Pacific Ocean in the other direction.
